Unless you are Robyn, I know you don't care

But Chad Michael Murray is leaving One Tree Hill. I can't tell you how much this has broken my spirit. Chad Michael Murray and his sensitive-guy-face and his better-acting-through-squinting techniques have been such a joy to me since my lovely flatmate Saz introduced me to the show in 2007. Ever since I discovered this, I have been broken-hearted. Inconsolable. Ask anyone. I have taken to my bed and refused to arise until the CW reconsiders.

However, today it came to me in a blinding flash of light, exactly what I need in order to be happy again. Nobody is planning to do this (YET!), but inventing it inside my head has made me feel much happier. Okay. I need some network to do a show about a ballet school - no, wait for it - that's a boarding school - no! no! you are still waiting for it - set before the Second World War. Ish. That's when ish I would need it to be set. I THINK IT WOULD BE GREAT.

Yes. Essentially, Thursday's Children on TV. And American.

But no, seriously, I think this would be such fun! Thursday's Children is great, and what would make it even more great would be MORE CHARACTERS AND LONGER AND IN SERIAL FORM.

Right? Am I right? Wouldn't that be fun? For me?

Babysitters' Club

I found this website where this chick is rereading all the Babysitters' Club books. I don't know about you, but I was addicted to these books when I was small. I remember one time Anna's best friend offered to give me Super Special #10, the one where they're all in Peter Pan, if I would finish making the cookies she and Anna started to make and then got tired of. This was, like, the best deal ever, and when I conducted a purge of all my BSC books (dammit, wish I still had them), I hung on to that one particular book.

I just reread it this week, and here is my question. I get it that Jessi's being super bitchy in this book, and I get it that the boss-man of the play might not want to give the part of Peter Pan to a middle-schooler. But then he goes ahead and gives it to Kristy; so it's not about her age. And frankly, nobody in this play is going to be super-talented! So why would he NOT give the part (or any part!) to Jessi, who at least can dance and is accustomed to being on stage? He doesn't even give her a speaking part! I feel like this is an example of Ston(e?)ybrook racism, as we witnessed in Jessi's first book. But nobody even brings this up! HE IS BEING A RACIST PRICK AND NOBODY CARES.

I can't remember how they deal with Jessi and racism in the BSC books, apart from the one where she first moves to town, and also that Super Special that takes place at camp, where Mallory and Jessi are supposed to be like junior counselors in training, and their fellow campers don't like them because they're being stuck-up little snots (well they are!), and to show they don't like them, they call Mallory and Jessi "Oreos", and that's where I first learned that term, and I remember being like, Speaking of that, Oreos are delicious, and I went and stole a bunch of cookies from the long thin tin where we used to keep our cookies. Stolen cookies are always sweeter. I wonder if my parents knew how many of those cookies I stole and ate at a time.

Anyway, I'm very entertained by this website. She makes fun of Claudia's clothes. Even at age ten, I thought Claudia's clothes sounded fucking stupid. Why was she always wearing oversized shirts? Does she not have any normal shirts? I feel like Claudia would grow up still wearing these wacky fashions into her mid-thirties, which would be really tragic, but here's what it would lead to, ultimately:

CLAUDIA
(in the 360)
Um, well, this is a great off-the-shoulder oversized blouse with a short neon green skirt and polka-dot tights and ballet shoes. I would wear this like to hang out with my friend Stacey in New York City. She's super sophisticated because she's from New York City. I just think this is a really fun outfit that really reflects my personality.

STACY
There are just so many things wrong with this.

CLINTON
My eyes are burning.

STACY
(bunches the blouse together in the back)
Look what a great figure you have!

CLAUDIA
Yes, I can eat a thousand tons of junk food and never gain weight.

STACY
Oh shut up.

CLAUDIA
Or get pimples.

CLINTON
Why would you want to hide this great figure under all this SHIRT? When you wear this outfit, it makes you look frumpy and stumpy. Let's take a look at an alternative, okay?

Cut to: Cute, elegant manikin outfit

CLAUDIA
But this is so booooring!

STACY
This is not boring, this is elegant!

CLINTON
See, Claudia, this is an outfit that's genuinely sophisticated-

STACY
Which is what we want for you!

CLINTON
Yes, we do. See this ruching below the bodice? That's the kind of lovely feminine detail we want you to look for, that's going to accentuate the narrowest part of you, and really show off that adorable little figure.

Mmm, this is almost as satisfying as imagining what Buffy would do if she ever met Edward Cullen.

Proof

I am so relieved. Seriously, I am so, so, so relieved.

Ever since I got my library card renewed (it’s a major change in my life, this library card renewal business, brought on a serious existential crisis), I’ve been desperately worrying that I am Not Cut Out to be a writer, and that I’ve been sort of nailing my colors to the mast all this time when really I am just doomed to be miserable no matter what I do, and being a writer won’t make me happy. But I am pleased to report that my experiment from yesterday worked perfectly.

I read two books yesterday. I love reading. And you know what makes reading even better? I will tell you what makes reading even better: feeling like you are achieving work while you are reading. Actually, this makes everything better. This is why I like cross-stitching, and covering books in contact paper, while I watch movies or Merlin or whatever. If I have an end product, I feel like the time I spent watching Merlin wasn’t wasted, because look! I accomplished something! I protected my books for the rest of forever! Anyway, so yesterday I read two books, and when I finished them, I was like, YES! I HAVE LEARNED! WITH EACH BOOK I READ I BECOME MIGHTIER IN KNOWLEDGE. NOW I MUST GO FORTH AND CREATE! And then I laughed an evil scientist laugh and put a few more bolts into the head of my monster and set him loose on the populace.

And then I worked on this one story until three, and by then I was tired, so I put on Buffy the Vampire Slayer (I haven’t watched the fourth season in forever – it’s sad when they all split apart and don’t love each other!) and watched that while revising another story, and that was very satisfactory, and then in the evening I ate an unhealthy dinner and washed my hair and went to bed early. Which I expect is about what I would do if I were for reals a full-time writer.

And today? Today I am in SUCH A GOOD MOOD. Holy crap. I have such love for humanity right now. This morning after I got dressed, I was like, Hey, Buffy’s hair looked so pretty when she tied the front bits in the back. I’m going to try that with my hair. I get these ideas a lot in the morning, and normally it goes like this:

(JENNY tries to make HAIR do what she wants.)
HAIR: Fuck you. I would prefer to be in a braid.
JENNY: NO. THIS IS WHAT I WANT.
HAIR: I refuse to obey you.
(HAIR gets into a hopeless snarl and JENNY is reduced to tears at how unmanageable HAIR is, but after two tries she recognizes that it’s never going to work, so she just puts stupid HAIR in a braid.)

If you see me, and my hair’s in a braid, then it’s not terribly unlikely that the above scene played out that morning. But today, it went like this.

(JENNY tries to make hair do what she wants.)
HAIR: Fuck you. I would prefer to be in a braid.
(HAIR gets into a hopeless snarl.)
JENNY: Oh, Hair darling, if you only knew how much I loved you!
(JENNY untangles HAIR gently and lovingly, and gives it another go and succeeds brilliantly and looks pretty and thereafter has to keep checking herself out in a mirror because she loves her hair ever so much and never gets to see it all long and nice because ordinarily when it’s down it gets in her eyes until she hates it and puts it back in a braid.)

So, good. I am not doomed to misery. My hair looks pretty today, and writing is definitely what I’m supposed to be doing. End library card renewal existential crisis.

Oh, Spike (a Torchwood update)

I started watching Torchwood for much the same reason that I started watching Angel – because I’d fallen in love with the show from which it had been spun off, and I wanted to make the original show last longer while still feeding my addiction. Torchwood isn’t as good a spin-off as Angel is. I think partly because Angel gets a little cheerier on his own show than he is on Buffy, but Captain Jack – who was cheeringly cheerful on Doctor Who – gets grimmer. And I like cheerful people. Part of the reason I like Doctor Who so much is that Christopher Eccleston and David Tennant are both really, really cheerful. Plus, to be frank, the cast of Torchwood isn’t a terribly good ensemble cast, whereas the cast of Angel is quite, quite superb. Like when they brought on Wesley, and he was a rogue demon hunter? Ah, the good old days. The Torchwood characters are less fully realized.

I only bring this up so that when I refer to Spike it’ll be clear that I’m not likening Torchwood to Buffy and Angel at all. It’s not as good. Sorry. Maybe because Steven Moffat wasn’t involved in Torchwood.

Spike is in love with Captain Jack. And, I mean, why not, right? All the people who meet Captain Jack seem to fall over themselves being in love with him. Something to do with 51st-century pheromones (don’t blame me, I didn’t make it up). There are confusing innuendos about stopwatches. There are gun-shootin’ lessons. There are dances atop invisible spaceships next to Big Ben. But today Spike won the being-in-love-with-Captain-Jack contest, because today Spike urged Captain Jack to sing along with the song that was playing, because (he said) “It’s our song”, and Captain Jack said, “We don’t have a song. And if we did have a song, it wouldn’t be that song.”

Referring to Sarah Brightman’s enduring classic “I Lost My Heart to a Starship Trooper.”

I’ll give you that again. Spike told Captain Jack Harkness that “I Lost My Heart to a Starship Trooper” was their song.

Mm. I guess this is so funny for me because Spike and Jack were already making me laugh by – well, just everything really. I mean Torchwood is drastically not as good as Doctor Who, I only carry on watching it because Welsh accents are funny, but it’s brilliant to have Spike show up and be in love with Jack. Their relationship is not unlike the one Spike and Buffy share. With the Spike liking the object of his affection a lot more than the object of his affection likes him, and with the beating each other up and trying to kill each other in between making out. And then just when I thought that there was no way at all for them to be any funnier, they toss in “I Lost My Heart to a Starship Trooper” and call it their song.

And in case YouTube won’t load for you:

Tell me, Captain Strange, do you feel my devotion
Or are you like a droid, devoid of emotion
Encounters one and two are not enough for me
What my body needs is close encounter three

I lost my heart to a starship trooper
Flashing lights in hyper space
Fighting for the Federation
Hand in hand we’ll conquer space.

Many different thoughts to think

So this weekend was slightly depressing. I got food poisoning or something, and I spent all day Sunday dealing with that (v. v. yucky) and trying to figure out how to cheer myself up from food poisoning, a difficult proposition as you will know if you have ever been food poisoned. Eventually I hit upon the ABC sitcom Better Off Ted, and that worked brilliantly for a while. But there are only seven episodes, and I had soon watched them all, and then I washed YouTube videos of Portia de Rossi being awesome, and then I finished doing that and I lay around on the couch for a while moaning miserably. Not much fun if you have ever done it. And then I decided to go to the library.

I love the library.

The library was mostly a success. I got some books about book publishing, about which I always want to know more things, and I got some books about books, which is fun. I decided which ones to get by looking at their indexes for authors I liked, and then quickly reading what they had to say about authors I liked. And if they said things like “Have His Carcase was tedious and awful, and Gaudy Night was pretentious”, or “The Horse and His Boy was racist and sexist and stupid”, or “Oscar Wilde was not a good writer and nobody really likes him”, I put them back immediately and stuck my tongue out at them. Whereas if they didn’t say anything like that, I checked them out.

(Oscar Wilde was a good writer, and everybody liked him.)

Anyway, on the way home, I was driving, driving, driving, and for the first time ever I was glad they put up that stop sign by the golf course. I had pulled to a stop at the stop sign, and a raccoon crossed in front of my car and trembled and waddled towards my front wheels. And it was a baby raccoon. It waddled so adorably. It had a little sweet face. It looked up at me beseechingly like it was saying, Please, Jenny, please do not kill me. I am too young to die. I have not yet begun to live. I have rooted in very few garbage cans. Please spare me.

Of course I could not drive forward with a teeny weeny little baby raccoon staring up at me with “Please spare me” eyes. The car behind me honked, and I quickly decided how it would go if the raccoon didn’t move, and didn’t move, and the car behind me got very angry. I would get out of my car and shoo the baby raccoon away. And perhaps that would not work, and the car behind me’s owner would get out and yell mean things like “CRAZY WOMAN DRIVER” and I would say “You know not whereof you speak! In front of my car is a tiny little baby raccoon! Its life has hardly begun! I cannot kill this tiny raccoon, and you shall not force my car to go forward to kill this teensy sweet baby animal!” It would be very dramatic and exciting. I would stick to my guns and not allow the raccoon to be destroyed. I would say “Shoot if you must this old grey head / but spare this raccoon from being dead”, except I would come up with a better rhyme at the end.

In the event, the raccoon waddled adorably away before the car behind me could honk any more. Phew.

Oh, and then? When I got home? I read a story on my friend’s Facebook wall that was the perfect counterpart to my raccoon event. See, apparently she went outside one day recently and found a bunch of baby birds that had fallen out of their nest and were chirping unhappily at her. If it had been me, I would not have known what to do with them, because I would have worried that I would mess up everything and do things totally wrong; but fortunately she was the one to find them, and she used to work for a veterinarian, so instead of freaking out and standing there staring at them in chagrin before eventually deciding to leave them alone and hope that the mama bird found them and everything worked out okay, she FED THEM TO HER SNAKES. Waste not, want not.

Doctor Who

When my sisters and I were small, and somebody we liked was about to leave, we used to attach ourselves to them to prevent it. Robyn and I would each sit on one foot and cling like monkeys, and Anna would launch herself from the side of the sofa to the adult's back, from which lofty position she would do her best to stop them from prying off Robyn and me. I recognized that, adults being larger and stronger than we were, we would probably not be able to stop them leaving by main force (a point, incidentally, that I think Anna failed to grasp). I did have this notion, though, that they just hadn't realized how much we wanted them to stay, and if we could show them, by our actions, the power of our love, the sincerity of our need for them to stay and not go, their hearts would be moved by our simple childish affection, and then they would stay longer.

I really, really wish that David Tennant wouldn't leave Doctor Who. But I am far too old to sit on his feet.

LOOK.

This is an open letter to film and television producers everywhere.

I have no gripe with you giving your characters asthma. Lots of people have asthma. But seriously, if you're going to give them a condition that causes them to puff on their inhalers every five seconds, do some research. Or if you really cannot be bothered to find an asthmatic person and ask how to use an inhaler, then pause for a second and think about it. They're inhaling, right? Which means that they are taking in the medicine by inhalation? So what the hell sense does it make for them to breathe out again straightaway after inhaling it? MY GOD.

As a point of comparison, you will not recover swiftly from strep throat if you spit out your antibiotics before swallowing them.

And yes, the timing of this complaint has everything to do with Joss Whedon's new show Dollhouse; but YOU ARE ALL GUILTY OF IT. And, you know, most of you do not make shows as good as Dollhouse. So.

A weird side effect of finishing TV shows I've really loved

is that I quickly become absolutely obsessed with whatever story I’m working on at the moment. After several weeks of not wanting to look at my story again, ever, because I knew that it was so absolutely useless and shameful and should probably be tossed in an incinerator (God, I’m glad I don’t write these things out longhand because I probably really would burn them up when I get in those moods), I now feel like I’ve been given a shot in the arm of interest. Life is weird.

My sisters and I watched the finale of Doctor Who’s fourth series last night. Anna graciously refrained from asking me and Robyn what was so great about Rose, though I’m sure she must be wondering. We go on and on about Rose. Whenever we say something nice about Donna, we pause and say that of course we miss Rose and wish she would come back. Whenever we sneer at Martha – mad Martha, blind Martha, charity Martha – we discuss how much better Rose was. Anna probably watched the finale and thought to herself that Rose doesn’t even come close to living up to – oh, honestly, I can’t even finish this sentence. Anna inevitably thought Rose was great, because Rose is great. Obviously. Undeniable. It is like that Fry and Laurie song – however built up it is, it could never be a letdown, because it’s so clearly brilliant.

Anyway, I got home last night intending to go to bed early and sleep until seven, giving myself plenty of sleep before returning to work. I just thought I’d glance at my story quickly, to see if it was still as crap as I remembered it being. Instead of that I worked for an hour and a half, and then I set my clock to wake me up earlier so that I could work on it in the morning.

This always happens. It did when I finished Buffy, as well. I’m not completely sure why, but one of the reasons I decided to read Lonely Werewolf Girl (thereby permanently cementing my love for Martin Millar) was that he said he wrote it because he was sad Buffy was over. Oh, how I identify with that. Maybe the reason I am so intent on finding new books and films to love is that when I finish them, I am all set to write like a mad writing fiend.

One of the most dreadful things about my year in England, which, I can tell you, contained a lot of pretty dreadful things (as well as, be it said, a lot of really nice ones), was that I was depressed and not writing anything, and I had just finished reading The Time Traveler’s Wife and Jane Eyre, and I frantically frantically wanted to be working on one of my stories, and I just couldn’t get anything written. Every time I tried to write something, it was shocking crap and I practically had to print every bit of it out so I could stomp on it and spit on it and set it on fire in the kitchen sink. It was so unpleasant, like, like – I can’t think of an elegant metaphor. I can only think of yucky, poop-related ones. Never ever ever again will I be depressed enough that I cannot work when I want to work.

Glad I never knew this before

Here is a piece of information I learned from Doctor Who. Apparently there is a set of numbers that are called “happy numbers”, which means that when you take sum of the squares of the number’s digits, and then carry on doing that for a while, the number eventually equals one. Unhappy numbers are numbers that never get to one by this process. Happy primes are particularly good because they are both happy and prime. They’re very, very special.

I have always felt sad for prime numbers, because they have almost no divisors. Just themselves, and 1. Poor little things. I mean, numbers like 42, they have oodles of divisors, and they can all play drinking games at the 42 divisor Christmas party, and the poor prime numbers have really lame Christmas parties where they and 1 sit around wearing Christmas hats and making awkward conversations with each other. I mean it’s not so bad for numbers like 7, that were never going to have a bunch of divisors to start with, because they’re just little small numbers, but imagine how bad, like, 1259 must feel. I bet 1259 has tried to convince 1 to unite with it so they can be 1260 and have lots of friends, and 1’s all like There already is a 1260. There can’t be two. It would mess up everything. And 1259 probably cries and begs (cause 1259 is drunk), and 1 feels embarrassed and wishes it could go home.

Whoa. I just looked up prime numbers on Wikipedia to find a high one, and I had no idea the world of primes was so rich and fascinating. Apparently other people do not feel sorry for prime numbers – or if they do, they are making a hell of an effort to make them feel special, like when teachers are extra extra nice to the weird kids in an effort to prevent them from noticing that everybody in the class is shunning them.

Anyway, this happy primes information is great. Now I feel like the happy primes are loners because they like to be. They enjoy the company of their good friend 1, and that’s plenty enough company for them. Good for the happy primes! They know what they want!

(On the other hand, that makes the other ones unhappy primes, which just strengthens my pity for the rest of the prime numbers. Poor lonely things. They’re at their lame-ass Christmas party drinking heavily and eventually passing out on the floor while the long-suffering 1 cleans up their vomit and heads wearily over to the next party. Must be tiring for poor 1.)

As a grown-up who no longer takes math classes, this happy numbers business is pleasing information. My birthday falls on the 7th, which is a happy prime number, and on my next birthday I will be turning a happy prime. (Yay me!) But I’m glad I didn’t know about it when I was still in school, because I know it would have screwed me up. Calling certain (most!) numbers unhappy is a ticket to my anthropomorphizing them, and that, my friend, is a one-way nonstop train to total math failure. Trust me. Let’s not talk about how bothered I was by that whole comparison of greater than/less than symbols to alligators that were going to eat the bigger numbers (why? That’s not fair! Just because they’re bigger!). If I had known that these numbers were happy, and those numbers were unhappy, I would only have wanted to give answers that were happy. If I got an answer that was obviously implausible, but happy, odds aren’t bad I’d have left it alone so it could have its happiness. Better to get one question wrong than be forced to look into the bottomless abyss of misery that would result if I did it correctly.

Oh, yeah, and I also would have spent a lot of time doing pointless arithmetic to figure out whether the larger numbers were happy numbers. And I would have felt an even stronger aversion to negative numbers than I already did, because they would then not only have been negative but unhappy.

Wikipedia says, “If n is not happy, then its sequence does not go to 1.” That is such a sad sentence. Poor forlorn little n. Oh, n, be 7, darling, then you can be happy, dear, dear, dear little n.

WOOOOOOOOOOOO COLCHESTER

...I just found out that the monster in an upcoming Doctor Who episode was designed by a little boy from Colchester. HOORAY FOR COLCHESTER! COLCHESTER IS THE BEST PLACE IN ENGLAND EVER.

Well, okay, no it's not really. But I feel very fond of it. And it hasn't got a football team for me to support, so I have to support its monster-designing children.

...Okay, I'm shutting up about Doctor Who now.

I probably am not shutting up about Doctor Who now. I think it is great. And I haven't even seen any episodes with Tom Baker in, and he's supposed to be brilliant. He has lots of hair, and Sarah Jane, and Jelly Babies. I got one out of the library yesterday, and I shall watch it tomorrow or sometime that is not tomorrow but is soon. So if you have not yet watched any Doctor Who, I think that you should come over to my place tomorrow or soon and watch Tom Baker with me.

An update on Doctor Who

Sometimes it is pissingly terrifying, and I have to pause it, write a quick complainy blog post about how scary it is, and find out from Wikipedia what's going to happen with those terrifying little kid gas mask zombies that take over wirelesses and typewriters. P.S. It is very terrifying when a little kid gas mask zombies take over the typewriters. I really like typewriters. I don't want them to remind me of little kid gas mask zombies.

However, I do like the new American (suuuure) guy of dubious sexuality. I was worried he was going to turn out to be evil, but Wikipedia says not, so I hope he sticks around for a while. Not like that other guy I didn't like, who joined up on the TARDIS a couple of episodes ago, and then was gone almost immediately.

(I think it's nice when the Brits carry on being proud of the Blitz. Bless their hearts. Yes, Britain, that indeed was your finest hour.)

Edit later to add: The new American guy of dubious sexuality appears to be sticking around forever. I like him because I can depend on him to have his own spin-off show in a bit (hurrah!), and because he is always cheerful, and because he always has a gun. Seriously, the man always has a gun. Historically it's just been Rose and the Doctor relying on their wits to come up with something clever, and you know, that's not bad, they're both very smart, but now, see, now, it's Rose and the Doctor relying on their wits, and also - a gun! And if the Captain ever finds himself without a gun, he just fashions one, MacGyver-like, out of whatever happens to be nearby. It's brilliant. I'm glad Rose brings him back to life.

I have suddenly become much more motivated

to watch all the episodes of Dr. Who with David Tennant that there are in the world right now. I am rather fond of Dr. Who. I have only seen a few episodes, but that's because I just haven't had the time to watch all the episodes of the BBC's most recent incarnation of the show. I really liked the episode with the angels where they keep flashing pictures of statues while David Tennant is going "Don't blink. Blink and you're dead. Don't turn your back; don't look away; and don't blink" - that episode was well scary but I liked it a lot anyway. And I liked the one in which the Earth got destroyed and everybody was too busy quarreling to notice. It was very Auden-doing-Brueghel-esque.

Well, the reason I bring this up is that David Tennant's tenure (hee, that sounds funny) as the Tenth Doctor is coming to an end, and they're searching for a new doctor. And again, I wouldn't care that much about this - I didn't when I first heard about it - except that I read on Neil Gaiman's blog that they are considering Paterson Joseph to do it! Wonderful Paterson Joseph! I adore Paterson Joseph! I dote on Paterson Joseph! Paterson Joseph would be simply ideal!

The BBC miniseries of Neverwhere has many imperfections, as I will be the first to admit. Hunter is totally weird, and the footage of the Beast is totally silly. However, it also has many perfections (aha, see what I did there?), including Mr. Croup, who is just how I imagined him, and especially including, and here's the point, the Marquis de Carabas. Damn, the Marquis de Carabas was good. And that was Paterson Joseph. I liked him because he was exactly perfect in the part, and I also liked him because, as Neil Gaiman observed, he's not very tall, but he's really good at acting tall.

Anyway, he's the odds-on favorite to be the next Doctor Who. I would love that. I would watch Doctor Who every, every week, if Paterson Joseph were the new Doctor. I would become a mad Doctor Who fan - I've been meaning to do that anyway - and get all the old shows out of the library and see what all those British writers are talking about.

But of course now that I've brought it up like this, they will probably give the part to somebody else. Pooh.

Silly me

I watched Pushing Daisies last night. As time has gone by since the end of Pushing Daisies last year (last year?), I have gotten less and less fond of it. I have remembered it being far too sweet, and I have watched Wonderfalls a few times and found Pushing Daisies severely lacking by comparison. Furthermore, I have had to abandon my crush on Lee Pace because my friend says he is gay, and I obviously cannot marry someone who is gay. So I suspected that I was not as fond of Pushing Daisies as I had previously supposed myself to be, like when it first came out.

However, last night I watched the season premiere of Pushing Daisies, and I don't know what my cranky-ass problem was. Pushing Daisies is wonderful! Emerson Cod is snarky. He balances out the sweetness, and Lee Pace is still very cute and sweet, and he went and got all of Chuck's books! Plus it is a clever and a well-written show, even when horrifying things happen like a person composed entirely of bees. Ick.

Aw, Pushing Daisies. No wonder I liked it so much before.

Last night there was no Office because of the VP debates. Sarah Palin is ridiculous, and her accent is silly, and I was really looking forward to watching The Office last night. Pooh.

So I have a new job

This is a great relief since my old job expired when I quit school, and it was very necessary for me to begin making money again as soon as possible. My old job very sweetly allowed me to stay on a little while longer as a temporary (hourly) employee, and that was kind of them but not long-termy, so it was very important that I get right on that finding a new job thing.

In other news, I am tired of having everything ship from Memphis. Why Memphis? What’s so good about Memphis? Why does everybody have offices in Memphis? (By everybody I mean Amazon.com.) One of these days I’m going to live in Memphis, so when I check my packages for tracking, it will say, 6:08 AM, Left Memphis shipping office; 12:55 PM, Arrived at your house. I have two separate (alas! wouldn’t it have been cooler if I’d gotten all my books in one massive parcel?) parcels heading my way, and the big one is in Memphis. The little one is coming from Oregon, but still, out of fourteen books, only two are not coming from Memphis!

Also, after some arduous consideration, I have finally settled on my five desert island movies. I would take these five and accept no substitutes. Empire Records, Before Sunrise, Angels in America, King of Hearts, and the fifth season of Buffy. I choose the fifth even though it does not contain Angel, because the fifth does contain a lot of Anya and Tara, and I am very fond of Anya and Tara; moreover, the fifth is the season with Spike having dirty lusty love for Buffy, the Buffybot, a really excellent season finale, and (this is mean) Joyce’s death. I am glad when she is no longer around, and “The Body” is a really good episode.

I am pleased to have this settled. I have more or less chosen my desert island books – a recent change to the line-up substitutes The Ground Beneath Her Feet for The Color Purple, because although I don’t like The Ground Beneath Her Feet quite as much, it takes longer to read – but I have long struggled with the movies question.

Oh, yes, and also, today I found a website that explained how the internet works. I have long been struggling to understand how the internet works, and now I do, all because of Tim Berners-Lee. See, what happens is, there are all these computers that keep track of where web pages are stored. So I type in the address of a web page, like the library web address, for instance. Then my computer asks one of the clever computers for the number of the computer that hosts the web page for the library, right? When it gets that number, it asks the library computer to send me the library web page, and the library computer agrees to send it, and then, voila, I have it! (It comes in packets, a little bit at a time, until at last I have the whole thing, which is why a more complicated website takes longer – more packets to send!)

Lovely Tim Berners-Lee! I have always been so troubled that I use and use and use the internet without ever really understanding how the whole thing worked. I knew it was about sharing information, but I have never been clear on the process. Now I only don’t know how the clever computers manage to keep track of what websites are stored where; and also how it can be that one’s own computer knows who to ask for the number of the computer that has the webpage. And also how computers communicate in the first place.

You know what would be a good and improving project? If every time I went to the library, I got a children’s nonfiction book, in addition to my fun reading books. In this way I would learn a little bit of information about a bunch of different topics, and I would not get confused and feel stupid, and then I would have a broader network of knowledge in which to place new information about topics I have hitherto not understood (like the internet). Each time I go, I can get something from a different call number section.

Yes! Genius! I am in love with this idea! It is the best idea ever had by me in all the history of time! I will become a well-informed person only by reading children’s books! I will start with the 000s, which conveniently are computers, and after that I will go to the 100s, which are religion and philosophy, and I will work my way up. I will either go through each century exhaustively, or else alternate on successive library visits.

Soon I will know dozens and dozens of new and interesting facts. Updates as warranted.

All loud and screamy

I went to my very first ever LSU football game last night. It was a lot of fun. Trindon Holliday ran extremely quickly, and everyone shouted very loud. And it was only a little game!

Having attended this game, I've begun to feel that Joss Whedon really missed an excellent opportunity to have Anya go to a sporting event. I think it would have been very, very funny to have Anya go to a sporting event. J.K. Rowling didn't miss the point of having weird people at sporting events, which is why it is so very excellent when Luna commentates for Quidditch.

Life is weird

A few years ago, I sneered at Anna for purchasing seven seasons of Buffy the Vampire Slayer because even though they were only $20 altogether, I didn’t feel it was a necessary investment when she could have spent that $20 on something more exciting like, I don’t know, a whole bunch of dental floss.

The other day I found myself gravely talking to Robyn about how we didn’t think Buffy ever recovered emotionally from Angel’s departure, and how we really felt that her subsequent romantic dysfunction could be attributed to an unwillingness to let go of her relationship with him.

The running high of emotions

We finished watching Buffy today. We have now seen all the episodes that there are. There are no more new episodes for us to see, ever.

Robyn and I had different reactions to this. I cried eleven tears and fetched my laptop to go write my story, as I do when things end that I didn't want to end. She cried some tears also (I didn't count because I don't care about her) and then went into her room claiming she wanted a nap, and I went in later to fetch my laptop to write my story, and discovered that she was trying to smother herself with her pillow. But don't worry, I was in time to stop it.

We were very sad that Anya died. We thought it was more misfortune than poor eye-losing Xander deserved. We've been really loving Xander in the past two seasons - he's grown up a lot since the old days when he was all jealous of Angel. Plus, you know, he's the only one who's managed to make it through seven seasons of apocalypse without stopping being sweet. Like, Buffy's not a bit sweet anymore, and we never felt the same about Willow after she turned evil and started going out with Kennedy, but Xander's still a dear. In fact he's become more of a dear. Not less. He's had positive growth.

I'm sad no more Buffy. We've been watching Buffy since February, and we have great love for it. We think it deals honestly with relationships which is, actually, kind of rare in our experience. All these TV shows and - GOD - Twilight, which is disturbing and kinda antifeminist - no, wait, don't let me get off on that tangent - anyway, all these things where people continue to have insanely dysfunctional relationships because, I guess, it keeps TV interesting, and nobody ever says, Holy shit, you're insanely dysfunctional and have serious issues and/or mental disorders and then talks about the emotional issues and tries to figure out where to go with them.

On another note, my big sister, the warrior goddess, is leaving tomorrow, to go and do Life. Robyn and I have entertained the notion that some of our tears are Anna-related, not Buffy-related. Anna's swell. I'm happy about her Life but I'm going to miss her.

Two things

I checked Wikipedia today because I couldn’t remember whether my feast day was 11 August or 12 August (it’s the 11th), and you know what I discovered about St. Clare? Well, several things. First, I saw that she was the patron saint of clairvoyance, and that pleased me because although I don’t like puns qua puns, I really really liked the idea of the Catholic patronage assigners making little puns. I pictured them sitting around the table in the patronage assignments meeting, and they’ve been dipping into the Communion wine cause it’s a long meeting, and they’re getting a little silly, and they’re like, “No, dude, dude, dude, I got a good one. Clare – clairvoyance? Get it? Get it? Hahahahahaha, dude, gimme another shot of that divine blood, man.” And like the Pope’s trying to be responsible facilitator guy but he’s snickering too, so they totally press their advantage and they’re like, “No, seriously, we have to make her the patron saint of clairvoyance! Write it down!” and they all start going “Write IT write IT write IT” and the Pope says he’s going to do it just to make them shut up—

But then it turned out St. Clare had clairvoyant experiences. And that was why. So I tore up the letter that I was going to send back in time to tell the patronage assignment guys that it was good they were keeping a sense of humor about everything, and to be careful about drinking that communion wine or they’d wake up with a wicked hangover.

Oh, and (I guess this makes it three things, but whatever, this is still essentially part of the St. Clare thing) in the mid-50s, the Pope also made her the patron saint of television. Television is one of those things I don’t think needs a patron saint, but since it’s not my call, I’m pleased that I come by my television-watching ways honestly. Not like the rest of you loser couch potatoes with no excuse for your ways (*cough* Robyn *cough*).

The other thing was WAY MUCH COOLER which is why I have saved it for, um, second.

So yesterday, I virtuously agreed to give up one of my evenings for volunteer purposes – also fun, however, you know, virtuous and volunteery but fun at the same time – and when I came out of the building to go home, there was a falling star. That fell! Down from the sky! It was crazy: I walked out of the door, glanced up at what I thought was a plane, and then I thought, Well, hey, that plane is mighty enormous and plunging downwards and then I thought, HOLY FUCKING GOD IT IS A FALLING STAR AND CONSEQUENTLY THE MOST AMAZING THING EVER.

Seriously. Falling stars are so, so cool. No wonder Victoria was going to give it up for a falling star. I always thought they were cool, and one time my mother told me that falling stars aren’t that great, but I didn’t really believe it, and now that I have seen a falling star, it is clear to me that she was totally wrong. (Though once I described it to her, she said she thought my falling star was much more amazing than the crummy one she saw.) My falling star was wonderful. It looked huge and it fell most brilliantly and scattered sparks and sparks, and it was completely magnificent. It fell right down from the sky. It entirely flamed out and disappeared. If you have never seen a falling star, you really should.

Oo, and also: My mum gave me a massive bookshelf to keep for my very own when I move into my apartment. It is humongous. It is a floor-to-ceiling bookshelf and contains a lot of space for many, many books. Not every book that I own, but very, very, very many indeed, and I can put my other books on shelves in my very large closet. I am going to take this bookshelf to my new apartment and put it in my bedroom, and I will put my cousin’s chair right in front of the bookshelf, and it’ll be all read-y and sit-y and I will sit and read and read and sit.

Yay.

Two things that pleased me today

Well, Robert Browning again. I can’t help it. He’s so sweet. I’m excerpting bits of his letter where he first proposes to Elizabeth Barrett (at least, the first surviving proposal letter – I theorize that he may have proposed in the Very Shocking Letter that she got so upset about). He says:

I have read your letter again and again. I will tell you—no, not you, but any imaginary other person, who should hear what I am going to avow; I would tell that person most sincerely there is not a particle of fatuity, shall I call it, in that avowal; cannot be, seeing that from the beginning and at this moment I never dreamed of winning your love. I can hardly write this word, so incongruous and impossible does it seem—

…In so many words, is it on my account that you bid me 'leave this subject' [of marriage]? I think if it were so, I would for once call my advantages round me. I am not what your generous self-forgetting appreciation would sometimes make me out—but it is not since yesterday, nor ten nor twenty years before, that I began to look into my own life, and study its end, and requirements, what would turn to its good or its loss—and I know, if one may know anything, that to make that life yours and increase it by union with yours, would render me supremely happy, as I said, and say, and feel. My whole suit to you is, in that sense, selfish—not that I am ignorant that your nature would most surely attain happiness in being conscious that it made another happy—but that best, best end of all, would, like the rest, come from yourself, be a reflection of your own gift.

Dearest, I will end here—words, persuasion, arguments, if they were at my service I would not use them—I believe in you, altogether have faith in you—in you.

… My whole scheme of life (with its wants, material wants at least, closely cut down) was long ago calculated—and it supposed you, the finding such an one as you, utterly impossible—because in calculating one goes upon chances, not on providence—how could I expect you?

How Elizabeth Barrett could resist this I have no idea. However, she writes back that she can’t marry him because she’s sickly and unworthy and couldn’t dream of burdening him, and furthermore her father wouldn’t hear of it (tyrant). She says, “The subject will not bear consideration—it breaks in our hands. But that God is stronger than we, cannot be a bitter thought to you but a holy thought ... while He lets me, as much as I can be anyone's, be only yours.”

It gets Robert Browning all glum. He tells her this:

Well, I understand you to pronounce that at present you believe this gift impossible—and I acquiesce entirely—I submit wholly to you; repose on you in all the faith of which I am capable. Those obstacles are solely for you to see and to declare ... had I seen them, be sure I should never have mocked you or myself by affecting to pass them over ... what were obstacles, I mean: but you do see them, I must think,—and perhaps they strike me the more from my true, honest unfeigned inability to imagine what they are,—not that I shall endeavour. After what you also apprise me of, I know and am joyfully confident that if ever they cease to be what you now consider them, you who see now for me, whom I implicitly trust in to see for me; you will then, too, see and remember me, and how I trust, and shall then be still trusting.

Er. I actually was just going to summarize this whole exchange. But I couldn’t resist quoting. He’s such a dear. And did I mention he was born on my birthday? When I was a young lass I thought that my best advertisement for 7 May as a birthday was Brahms and Tchaikovsky, but I realize now, of course, that Robert Browning is the real coup. Though I am very envious of my mother’s star-studded birthday – Tennessee Williams, Diana Ross, Nancy Pelosi, Bob Woodward, Erica Jong, Alan Arkin, Robert Frost, A.E. Housman – I would not switch with her because I have so much love for Robert Browning.)

They are totally my favorite literary couple. I like them even better than I like Jane Eyre and Mr. Rochester. I’m getting all suspensey for when Elizabeth agrees to marry him. Also, I’m starting to feel a little guilty for reading their letters. Sort of. But not enough to quit reading them. I may even buy a great big book of their letters. Apparently the big book o’ letters from 1845-1846 (the only letters they ever exchanged, said their son, because after their marriage they were never separated) just got put back into print – though I’d prefer, of course, to get the old hardback ones.

Number two pleasing thing is: I learned a new word!

I know this is geeky, but I love, love, love learning words for things for ideas I already have in my brain but I didn’t know there was a word for them. I always want to call up Helen Keller on the phone and be all, I totally know how you felt about the water, dude. (Sorry, Jenny, she’s dead.) Sometimes I have dreams about learning words of this kind, and they are not dissimilar to those dreams where I go to the library or the bookstore and discover that my favorite author has actually written an entire shelf of books I never read before (actually sort of true of Martin Millar who is not my favorite author but I am very fond of his books) and I get them ALL INSTANTLY because I have a library card or a whole bunch of money.

But I digress. I’m going to put my word in its own paragraph, because it deserves it.

Apophenia. Apophenia.

It means perceiving connections between random-ass things that happen even if actually there’s no pattern to the events. There’s a word for that! I have such a crush on this word. If I had had classes today instead of work, I’d’ve spent the whole time doodling on my notes, Apophenia + Jenny = <3 and Mrs. Jennifer Apophenia.

It’s most fortunate I had this word today. My brain keeps playing me snippets of songs from the musical episode of Buffy, which we watched last night, and from Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog. It’s helpful to have a shiny new word for distracting my brain with. It’s all, I hope she fries, I’m free if that bitch dies, and I’m all, Hey, brain, APOPHENIA and it’s all, Oo, pretty! for a few minutes before getting back to the important business of trying to remember what exactly Mal says about blowing in the breeze (teehee).

P.S. While writing this blog post, I got addicted to the Brownings’ letters and read farther down, and I swear to God, I wouldn’t keep posting these excerpts if it weren’t for how Robert Browning keeps on saying things that are so nice it does my head in. Behold a bit of his response to her story about how her mean, mean father won’t let her to go Italy for her health:

Now again the circumstances shift—and you are in what I should wonder at as the veriest slavery—and I who could free you from it, I am here scarcely daring to write ... though I know you must feel for me and forgive what forces itself from me ... what retires so mutely into my heart at your least word ... what shall not be again written or spoken, if you so will ... that I should be made happy beyond all hope of expression by. Now while I dream, let me once dream! I would marry you now and thus—I would come when you let me, and go when you bade me—I would be no more than one of your brothers—'no more'—that is, instead of getting to-morrow for Saturday, I should get Saturday as well—two hours for one—when your head ached I should be here. I deliberately choose the realization of that dream (—of sitting simply by you for an hour every day) rather than any other, excluding you, I am able to form for this world, or any world I know—And it will continue but a dream.

Bless him. She said this back to him, and I swear that after this I’m shutting up about the Brownings, but I have to quote this because it’s very touching:

But it will be the same thing—for you know as well as if you saw my answer, what it must be, what it cannot choose but be, on pain of sinking me so infinitely below not merely your level but my own, that the depth cannot bear a glance down. Yet, though I am not made of such clay as to admit of my taking a base advantage of certain noble extravagances, (and that I am not I thank God for your sake) I will say, I must say, that your words in this letter have done me good and made me happy, ... that I thank and bless you for them, ... and that to receive such a proof of attachment from you, not only overpowers every present evil, but seems to me a full and abundant amends for the merely personal sufferings of my whole life. When I had read that letter last night I did think so. I looked round and round for the small bitternesses which for several days had been bitter to me, and I could not find one of them. The tear-marks went away in the moisture of new, happy tears. Why, how else could I have felt? how else do you think I could? How would any woman have felt ... who could feel at all ... hearing such words said (though 'in a dream' indeed) by such a speaker?

And now listen to me in turn. You have touched me more profoundly than I thought even you could have touched me—my heart was full when you came here to-day. Henceforward I am yours for everything but to do you harm—and I am yours too much, in my heart, ever to consent to do you harm in that way. If I could consent to do it, not only should I be less loyal ... but in one sense, less yours. I say this to you without drawback and reserve, because it is all I am able to say, and perhaps all I shall be able to say. However this may be, a promise goes to you in it that none, except God and your will, shall interpose between you and me, ... I mean, that if He should free me within a moderate time from the trailing chain of this weakness, I will then be to you whatever at that hour you shall choose ... whether friend or more than friend ... a friend to the last in any case. So it rests with God and with you—only in the meanwhile you are most absolutely free ... 'unentangled' (as they call it) by the breadth of a thread—and if I did not know that you considered yourself so, I would not see you any more, let the effort cost me what it might. You may force me feel: ... but you cannot force me to think contrary to my first thought ... that it were better for you to forget me at once in one relation. And if better for you, can it be bad for me? which flings me down on the stone-pavement of the logicians.

In all seriousness, I really admire Elizabeth Barrett Browning. She totally shook free of her father's awful tyranny and nastiness even though she had been dealing with it her whole life and even though she was an invalid, and she went off and she had her own life. And you know what else? When she got pregnant, she got off morphine. She did! Straight off! They were like, Dude, I know you take morphine all the time for your sickness, but you can't be doing that while you're pregnant, so she just stopped. She was much more hardcore than lame old Mrs. Dubose, and she was also nicer and a good writer. So there. And I also think it's sweet how they think each other are so important that they're constantly italicizing you when they write to each other.

Okay. I'm stopping. Someone should chain my fingers together so I can't type any more of these blog posts.

*sniffles*

Last night we watched the fifth season finale of Buffy. It was very sad. I got extremely choked up, and I was weirdly upset on Spike’s behalf – though in my defense he did look very, very sad. This was the saddest episode ever. Much sadder than when Buffy had to send Angel to hell, and I was really sad that time that Buffy had to send Angel to hell. And the “Grr…Argh” monster that used to send me into fits of rage until I understood why he was the way he was? He didn’t say “I think I need a hug” the way he did at the end of the second season, even though I definitely needed a hug more at the end of the fifth.

Anyway the point is this: JOEL GREY BETRAYED ME AND BROKE MY HEART.

You know, I used to love Joel Grey. I loved him in Cabaret and I loved him in Wicked and I loved him a special lot when, um, he came on the Muppet Show. I think Joel Grey is as cute as he can be, and he spawned a cute offspring, and I just like him a lot. I mean, until yesterday, when he necessitated Buffy’s INCREDIBLY TRAGIC DEATH.

In addition to which, there was a shot of him before one of the commercial breaks (which obviously no commercial breaks for me because I’ve got the DVDs), where he’s standing there smiling at Dawn and there’s a big (but not stagey-big) knife that he’s holding right next to his face, and that shot may be the single scariest thing I have ever seen.

Even scarier than A Beautiful Mind which scared me more than any movie ever, and substantially scarier than that time I saw Scream in seventh grade English class.

So now, in addition to being broken-hearted and betrayed, I am now going to have terrible knife-filled nightmares.

THANKS A LOT, JOEL GREY.